Hobbit and Sherlock star Martin Freeman has revealed his first flirtation with fame was in the Surrey Comet aged 11.

The 42-year-old former Office star, who was born in Aldershot and attended Brooklands College in Weybridge, told BBC Radio 6: “My first flirtation with fame was I was in the Surrey Comet when I was 11 and the headline was Martin beats injury to reach the top.

“I was a squash player. I was a very good junior squash player in the Surrey squad and I had had recently two hip operations and so a photographer came around and photographed me in my Surrey squad tracksuit and my squash racket smiling at the camera in the same embarrassed way that I do now every time there is a camera in my face.

"In fact I was better at it when I was 11 to be honest than I am now.”

Freeman won plaudits for playing long-suffering Tim in award winning The Office on BBC.

Sherlock, where he plays Dr Watson, has seen as many as 8m viewers tune in and Freeman win a best supporting actor BAFTA.

But his role as Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit has made him one of the biggest British film stars with the trilogy so far taking nearly $2billion at the box office world wide.

His latest role sees him in a TV series remake of Oscar winning film Fargo before he returns to Middle Earth for the final installment of the Hobbit, recently retitled The Battle of the Five Armies.

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